Knol is open to everyone — A few months ago we announced that we were testing a new product called Knol. Knols are authoritative articles about specific topics, written by people who know about those subjects. Today, we're making Knol available to everyone.

Google's Knol Launches: Like Wikipedia, With Moderation — After six months of testing, Google has formally rolled out Knol, a service designed to let people create pages of knowledge on any topic they choose. While Google says Knol is not designed to compete with Wikipedia …

Google Launches Knol, The Monetizable Wikipedia — Today Google has launched Knol, its Wikipedia alternative that holds authors accountable for the articles they write. Each article is created by a team of authors who receive attribution, and are allowed to take part in a rev-share for AdSense ads on their page.

Meetup - The Original Web Meets World Company — Something is changing on the web. We have lost some of the giddy enthusiasm that has surrounded the web since 2004. It was then that Tim O'Reilly defined Web 2.0 as a platform that leveraged collective intelligence.

Our Newest Portfolio Company: Meetup — My partner Brad starts his post on our newest investment, Meetup, with a rumination on what's causing the introspection that we in web investing land are going through. And he ends his thoughts on that topic with the following:

It's Facebook Day! Say Hello To The Three Tier App System — Today is definitely Facebook day as they hold their second annual F8 developers conference in San Francisco. Last year they released their developer platform, which led competitors to hurriedly release their own competing offerings.

FCC Reaches Tentative Deal To Approve XM-Sirius Merger — WASHINGTON - A tentative deal has been reached by a majority of commissioners at the Federal Communications Commission to approve the merger of Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. and XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc., a FCC source close to the review said Wednesday.

BlackBerry Kickstart 8220 Hands-On Hardware Review — The Web's First Review of the BlackBerry KickStart 8220. — Grab a cup of coffee, sit back and relax! It's time for another hands-on review of a yet to be officially announced or released BlackBerry smartphone.

Perl on App Engine — I'm happy to announce that the Google App Engine team has given me permission to talk about a 20% project inside Google to to add Perl support to App Engine. To be clear: I'm not a member of the App Engine team and the App Engine team is not promising to add Perl support.

Amazon.com Announces Second Quarter Sales up 41% to $4.06 Billion; Sales Growth Accelerates to 31% in Media and to 58% in Electronics and Other General Merchandise — SEATTLE—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN - News) today announced financial results for its second quarter ended June 30, 2008.

Phone Giants Fight to Keep Subscribers — With millions of people snapping up the iPhone, AT&T, the exclusive carrier for the popular phone, should be quite pleased with the stream of revenue it can expect from customers. — But AT&T, the biggest telecommunications company in the United States …

Nintendo can't fight off patent metroids, faces injunction — It seems that gaming controllers are the hot target for patent lawsuits, and patent holders are finding litigation a sound strategy. After Sony lost its case against Immersion and, along with Microsoft, coughed up a hefty sum of money …